Kevin Durant suspected something was up when he saw his OKC teammate suiting up before Team USA’s game vs Argentina in the final match of the Olympic prelims. “Yo, Russ, why’s your jersey on backwards?” Westbrook looked down in surprise before sheepishly turning it around. “Well, um, you know how they say you’re supposed to play for the name on the front?”

“So in the relay,” Usain Bolt explained, “you run as fast as you can, then pass the baton off to the next guy.” Westbrook looked on quizzically, as everyone else nodded. “Why would you want to do that?”

Russell Westbrook was just 11 years old when Vince Carter leapt over Frederic Weis, vaulting himself into Olympic lore. This is an impressionable age. So when he caught a pass up top with much of the Argentina squad in the lane, he didn’t need to think twice. Or once, really. One dribble, one souvenir poster for Mr. Gutierrez. Now that’s the passing of the baton.

We felt like we could play with anyone last year, and we knew as long as we could get to the Tourney, we had a chance to make some noise.

I had the experience from my freshman year playing against Kansas, so going into the game against Duke I was pretty calm. Read some Bible verses and things like that to keep me calm. I watched Doug McDermott and those guys (Creighton) play—they were playing in the same arena—and it just calmed me down. I saw a focus in my team. Everybody looked like they were ready to play, nobody looked nervous. At the end of the day, it’s just another team, just another game. All we can control is how hard we play, and I think we played hard, and that was the difference. We believed we could win. I don’t think I got a shot until about three minutes into the game, where I came off and hit my first shot, and then knew it was gonna be a pretty good night. I could see the confidence in our team.

When there was about 45 seconds left, I went to the bench and told them to tell our team not to celebrate and jump around. Act like we’ve been here before. I didn’t want to act like we won the National Championship—it was just one game. I wanted our team to be grateful winners, act like we expected ourselves to win. I didn’t want our team to be remembered like that; I wanted our team to be remembered with class.

We definitely celebrated in the locker room, but I wanted our team to really savor the moment and enjoy it, and I think that’s exactly what we did. My phone was blinking red, and my battery was dying from all the messages I kept getting. It just kept vibrating from Twitter mentions to text messages and voicemails. There were like 40 text messages and tons of notifications.

I was getting videos sent to me [from campus], like everybody’s in the streets, trees are on fire, people are burning stuff. It was a bit out of control at first, and then everybody settled down and it became a composed party in the street. Let’s put it like that.

Surprisingly or not surprisingly, at Lehigh University there’s no preferential treatment. It was back to reality on Monday when we flew in: 9 a.m. class, and they expect you to be there and turn in whatever work you missed. Papers, all that. Lehigh does a great job of focusing on academics, making sure athletes stay on top of their work. I had a paper that I turned in right before we left to go to the games. They say basketball never stops, but academics never stops.

I just really looked at the film over the summer, watched it, tried to pick up the type of shots I’m getting in games—a lot of pick-and-rolls and stuff. I want to get my conditioning better. Definitely getting up a lot of shots while I’m tired, that’s one of the biggest things. Being able to shoot in the second half down the stretch, being able to hit free throws, things like that. I basically worked on everything: to improve my lateral quickness and my explosion, to put on weight, lifted, off-the-ball stuff, off-the-dribble stuff. So I basically worked on everything to try to fine-tune my game and take advantage of the last couple months headed into the season.

The mindset now is definitely to build on what we did last year—we’re not content in any matter. We feel like we’re capable of making another run, and we know that we have a tough, tough journey ahead of us. It’s always hard to repeat that championship win within your conference, but we’re definitely prepared to do whatever it takes to get back there.

Over the years, Coach [Brett] Reed had preached that he wanted to not only make the Tournament, but he wanted to make a statement in the Tournament and try to make a run. Now we want to get back again and make one last run at it.

Now that Coach Cal has won a Championship at Kentucky, expect every coach in the country to go with a bunch of 18-year-olds every year. Juniors and seniors will be relegated to the scout team. Curfew will be at 10 a.m., and pre-game film sessions will include clips from SpongeBob.

Well, not quite. Calipari’s style has been validated, but not everyone can attract four or five elite freshmen each year. So, the rest of college ball will continue its business while Cal stays young at heart. Meanwhile, across the state, Louisville’s Rick Pitino is plotting his revenge for last year’s Final Four loss to UK. A national title would be pretty cool payback.

When Cody Zeller was 2 years old, he was a bit of a macropodaphobic—he was scared of kangaroos.

It all started with a Zeller family trip to a zoo in Illinois. A day of innocent exploration for young Cody took a traumatizing turn when he found himself face-to-face with a wallaby that was the same height as him. He did not like this. He did not like it one bit.

“I had nightmares about it for a while,” Cody, who turns 20 in October, says today.

But he didn’t let his fears stop with wallabies. He decided he didn’t like kangaroos too much either. When he got home, he saw phantom kangaroos everywhere. He told his parents there were kangaroos hiding under the table, around the corner and in his closet. He could not sleep.

“He probably just said it to stay up late,” says his mom, Lorri Zeller.

These days you won’t find many wallabies, kangaroos or even people close to Zeller’s 6-11 height, and you’d have to search even harder to find one that plays basketball the way he does.

“He’s the best big we saw all year,” says New Mexico State head coach Marvin Menzies, who lost to Zeller and Indiana in the second round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament.

Every day, Zeller wakes up to Travis Tritt’s decade-old song, “It’s A Great Day To Be Alive” because for him, well, it is.

In the span of a freshman year, he has helped turn around the Indiana Hoosiers, developed into a potential No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA Draft and become the final piece of the puzzle that makes the Zeller family the Mannings of basketball centers.

Really, each day is a great day to be alive when you’re Cody Zeller.

The early great days started in Washington, IN, a town about 60 miles to the southwest of Zeller’s new home in Bloomington.

Washington, like many other Indiana towns, is crazy for basketball. It has a relatively sparse population of 11,500, but its high school gym can hold more than 7,000.

“Basketball has always been important to our community and to our whole area,” says Washington mayor Joe Wellman. “The Zellers solidified that interest.”

Every Zeller is an athlete. His mother played Division III basketball at Coe College, and his father, Steve, was a walk-on football player at Iowa State.

The oldest son is 25-year-old Luke, who plays in the D-League for the Austin Toros. The most talkative of the three Zeller boys, Luke has a magnanimous personality, and is the ringleader of the fam.

Then there’s Tyler, a 22-year-old former North Carolina Tar Heel, who was just drafted in the NBA Lottery. The most reserved of the three, he’s also the tallest at an even seven feet.

And the youngest is Cody. He’s a blend between his two older brothers’ personalities, and he developed a prankster mentality to keep up with Luke and Tyler.

The three Zeller boys won four state titles, three Mr. Basketball honors in Indiana and all received scholarships to play Division I basketball. They also all finished in the top-three of their high school class.

Once when Tyler was about 11 years old, he rode his bike into the back of the Zeller’s car and broke a tail light. His parents asked him how it happened and Tyler told them he didn’t know. It didn’t take long for Cody to cry out, “Tyler did it!”

“I’m sure Tyler tattled on me once before so I had to repay him,” Cody says.

There was tattling and a fight here and there, but above all, this was a basketball family, and his brothers taught Cody the sport.

“I could play against them whenever I wanted to,” Cody says. “They would show me different stuff that they had learned.”

Watching his two older bros go through the recruiting process also taught him a thing or two about the college game. He wanted to keep things simple when it was his turn. That meant no long, boring trips through Missouri, Kansas and Iowa like his brothers had done.

“I really don’t want to do that,” Cody told his mom. “I like football so let’s go to some football games this fall.”

Despite trips to gridiron games at Michigan and Ohio State, Zeller narrowed his choices down to three schools known for their basketball—North Carolina, Butler and Indiana.

The Hoosiers were a very bad team at the time. They won just 10 games the year before. Head coach Tom Crean’s job was possibly on the line. Indiana needed Cody.

In November 2010, just before his senior season, Cody was ready to decide. He chose his high school gym as the venue.

The third Zeller college decision received the most hoopla. There were four or five media members covering Luke’s choice and close to 10 covering Tyler’s, according to Todd Lancaster, sports editor for The Washington Times-Herald.

“When Cody did it, there were like 25 camera crews and 80 credentialed people there,” Lancaster says.

Indiana was the choice. Fans copped his jersey before he even played a game in Bloomington.

“People in Washington had them made pretty quickly even when I was in high school,” Cody says.

By the time Zeller began college, he was an Indiana folk hero. As a member of his AAU team, the Indiana Elite, he destroyed Kentucky-bound Anthony Davis.

“We played them and won by 25 points,” says Indiana Elite head coach Mark Adams. “I thought Cody was the best person on the floor then.”

But most importantly to the Indiana faithful, he was a hometown boy who wanted to stick around.

After the turmoil caused by former head coach Kelvin Sampson’s NCAA violations and the early departure of Eric Gordon, the Hoosier faithful deemed Zeller their savior—an Indiana native who understood the program, didn’t care about the recent past and was happy to be there.

“He just enjoys where he’s at and who’s with him,” Luke says. “He lives carpe diem.”

Despite five NCAA Championship banners collecting mites in the rafters, the Hoosiers won a combined total of 28 games in the three seasons prior to Zeller’s arrival.

In their first season with him, they won 27. “It just feels like the energy is coming back to Bloomington,” says Joby Wright, a rapper from Bloomington, IN, who made a song called “The Big Handsome Anthem” about Zeller.

From rap songs to jerseys to posters, Hoosiers fans adore Zeller not just because they can identify with him, but also because he can identify with them.

”When kids approach Cody, he says, ‘I see me when I look at them, and I want to spend time with them,’” Luke says.

Zeller averaged 15.5 ppg and 6.4 rpg and led the Hosiers to their first Sweet 16 since 2002. Along the way they started 12-0, and knocked off No. 1 Kentucky and No. 2 Ohio State at Assembly Hall.

“In college, he might not have dominated every game, but in every game he impacted it and made us a better team,” says Austin Etherington, a teammate of Zeller’s.

At 83 inches tall, Zeller is without question a center. But while his brothers are most comfortable close to the basket, Cody’s ability to alter his attack is what helped bring wins to Bloomington.

“He plays like he’s about four inches shorter in terms of his versatility,” Menzies says.

He can run the floor and drive as well as a guard and extend his shooting range. As a post player, he can establish position on the blocks and finish at a high rate. Last season he shot 62.3 percent from the field.

Zeller is also a coach’s dream—a player who learns quickly and does what he’s told.

“You looked him in the eye, and you told him what you needed,” Adams says. “You never said it twice, you never had to repeat it and you never had to remind him.”

Put it all together, and you’ve got a player that many scouts are projecting as the possible No. 1 pick in the 2013 Draft.

“Now that he has the chance to be the No. 1 pick, it makes him work ever harder,” Etherington says. “It’s something that he is looking forward to.”

Zeller wants to be a complete player. He says he is working on his perimeter game and improving his rebounding, passing and post moves.

For Zeller, seeing his name at the top of a mock draft isn’t enough.

“It doesn’t mean anything right now,” he says. “If it’s still that way this time next year, maybe it will be different.”

Zeller might not know where he will be in a year, but he’ll always have a home in Washington. But despite being what the Kardashians are to Los Angeles, no one really bothers the Zellers in their hometown.

“They don’t feel smothered in Washington,” Lancaster says. “A lot of people can’t wait to get out. I have a feeling that in a lot of ways they can’t wait to get back.”

He and his two brothers try to return to town as often as they can, but as Lorri says, “The five of us are together twice a year if we’re lucky.”

The last time they all got together was Christmas, 2011. With the late start to the NBA season, Luke was there. Tyler and Cody were on winter break from school. Steve and Lorri had off, too.

“We’re definitely a close family,” Cody says. “We make the most of it when we’re around each other.”

Even with three NBA-quality centers at the dinner table, Christmas is no different than anyone else’s. There is food, and there is laughter. There are things to be thankful for, and there is family.

So were all the other members of the ’07-08 Indiana Hoosiers, of course. That’s how pre-season conditioning is designed. Players report to camp, split into a few groups—big men, wings, guards, etc.—and are given stopwatch times they’re expected to reach during six weeks of training sessions. But the goals are completely unrealistic; they’re inflated so the guys fall short, learning in the process that they aren’t invincible, that they have a ways to go before they’re competent enough to take on some of the toughest NCAA competition in the country.

One problem: In ’07, the demeaning strategy, not Gordon, was the failure. The then-freshman attained every single goal set for him.

“I never had a guy not miss a time,” IU’s strength and conditioning coach Jeff Watkinson says. “That’s just unheard of.”

Watkinson would go on to learn plenty more about Gordon’s commitment to success, both at Indiana and years later, when the combo guard hired the coach as his full-time trainer. The two re-connected during the summer of 2010 when EJ—Gordon’s nickname, short for Eric Jr—was training for the World Championships, and ever since they’ve been scheming to help the young pro make the jump that most believe he’s destined to make, the one from potential-filled upstart to NBA All-Star. “I bring him along everywhere I go,” Gordon says. “He’s good for me because he pays attention to every detail.”

For the two, the summer of ’12 existed for the purpose of fine-tuning those details. After a controversial, basketball-reasoned move brought the now 23-year-old to the Hornets last summer, the ’11-12 season turned out to be bleak; not only did New Orleans struggle to string together many victories, but EJ struggled to stay on the court, missing the heavy majority of the season with cartilage damage in his right knee.

He began this year’s hottest months with Team USA, competing for placement on the squad that would eventually take Gold in London. But despite some USA Basketball history—as mentioned, Gordon was a member of the Gold-winning group at the 2010 FIBA World Championships in Turkey—the spot he was fighting for went to James Harden, a guard with a similarly consistent J and similarly sneaky athleticism, albeit someone who didn’t have comparable international experience. Gordon says he was frustrated, but didn’t dwell on USA Basketball Chairman Jerry Colangelo’s decision. “Of course I was really disappointed,” he admits. “I’ve been on a USA team before so I know what it’s like and I also know what it’s like to win a Gold medal, and you always look for yourself to be on that team again. It was disappointing but at the same time you gotta overcome that and look for the best.”

From there, Gordon and Watkinson went to work on what they could control. During the injury-plagued ’11-12 season, EJ’s weight sprang into the 220s, and he’s made it a priority to get back down to the 213, 215 area. “That eight pounds makes a big difference,” Watkinson says. “He’s embraced the diet aspect. He’s never been a junk food eater, but he’s avoiding bread, heavy starches. Some of the foods that bloat him and make him feel sluggish, he’s just kinda got those out, and his body has responded really well to it.”

Watkinson also has Gordon training in ways you probably wouldn’t expect. In May, Gordon tweeted video of himself running through sand, completing the kind of training a soldier might undergo while a drill sergeant chews his ear out. “We do more movement-oriented stuff: medicine balls, cable machines, resistance bands,” Watkinson says. “Not always lifting, not always running, not always sports stuff. It’s a hybrid approach, little of everything. Sometimes combine things. Interval stuff out on the football field to avoid always running on the hardwood floors—sprint intervals, things like that.”

And then there’s the on-court prep: “We try to give him more things to add to his arsenal,” Watkinson says. “We do a lot of stuff with separation, because it’s such a big part of his game where he’s efficient separating from a defender. He’s 6-3, getting guarded by a lot of guys that are 6-6, 6-7, so he’s gotta create that space, whether it’s a pivot, a wheel move, a step-back, a pull-back—he’s got different things he can do to create separation.”

By the time he linked with Watkinson in Bloomington, IN, and years before his NBA career kicked off, Gordon already had an impressive little hoops résumé under his belt. The Naptown native was taught the game by his father, Eric Sr, who played three years at Liberty University. When EJ was a small child, his pops moved the family from inner-city Indianapolis to Washington Township on the north side, making sure to find a residence very close to the Jewish Community Center, where EJ and his brothers could learn the game of basketball. EJ was playing in a youth basketball league by 3, and by 5 he was playing in a league with 8-year-olds at Indy’s Municipal Gardens.

“He was always a decent shooter, and growing up he played point guard,” Eric Sr says. “I coached, and he was on the court all the time, so I didn’t want parents saying, ‘Your child is jacking up the shots!’ I made sure he played point guard, and he passed and distributed the ball and played full court man-to-man defense.”

“He was tough on me every day,” EJ says. “He stayed on me. It’s tough when you’re a kid because he expects the best out of you and it’s hard to learn that as a kid when he’s on you all the time. Most kids would break down and be done at that point, probably. But what I did was decide to get better and better.”

As the youngster moved to other coaches beyond his father, he switched over to the wing, where he developed a steady jumpshot that’d soon become his forte. To this day, he uses the same exact shooting form he established for himself as a grade schooler.

Gordon played high school ball at North Central High, making a name for himself as a Naptown-area standout while hooping on famed AAU squads over the summers with the likes of Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr, Derrick Rose and Josh McRoberts. During the school year, though, some of those guys provided the competition. In ’06 McRoberts’ Carmel High was beating up on EJ’s team as the game was headed into the final period. “I looked at him and said, You’re supposed to be the best player in the state of Indiana. Start playing like it,” says Doug Mitchell, EJ’s high school coach. “He looked at me and kinda smiled, and had 21 points in the fourth quarter. I thought, This guy’s got it.”

Though his college career is now more known for controversy than anything else—EJ literally received death threats for backing out of his commitment to the University of Illinois and heading to IU to play for Kelvin Sampson—he put up a solid season (669 points in total, one Big Ten Freshman of the Year award) in Bloomington before declaring for the ’08 Draft.

The L.A. Clippers then drafted the soft-spoken shooter seventh, and though he displayed flashes of greatness during a three-year stint in the City of Angels, averaging 16.1 ppg his rookie year and 22.3 in his third, Gordon was shipped out of town in the deal that founded the roots of the Chris Paul-helmed Lob City. NOLA finished the year 21-45, the silver lining coming in the form of a ping-pong ball that granted the franchise a lanky big man out of the University of Kentucky.

And then there was that little contract fiasco. This past July, the Phoenix Suns offered Gordon—a restricted free agent—$58 million over four years, a max deal. It was undeniably a risk; if he deserves a max contract, it’s because he’s going to be a max player, not because he is one. The ball then bounced into New Orleans’ proverbial court. “[If the Hornets match] as of right now, I’d be disappointed,” Gordon told the Times-Picayune during the three-day waiting period before New Orleans would have to match or let him move west.

No breaking news here: The Hornets matched. While there certainly weren’t any hurt feelings—life could be worse, you know, than earning $14.5 million a year to play ball—EJ was more concerned about the perspective of the fans, many of whom watched the situation unfold and wondered why this guy seemed to want out so badly.

“It’s all a business game,” he says. “I would say it’s hard for them to really understand the whole outcome of the situation. They don’t know the rules, like how contracts are formed. But hey, that’s the only thing I was worried about, was the fan reactions and how negative stuff was forming. All I wanted to do was get the best feel for myself and to look forward for the best in wherever I’d end up at.

“I look forward to just being back there,” he says, “and not having to worry about anything and just playing.”

But Gordon, a proud adidas endorser who’ll rock the Crazy Shadow this season, will now be counted on to do more than drain three-pointers and posterize big men. Unlike in L.A., where he was a mere youngster amidst a random smattering of talent, and his first mess of a year in the Big Easy, EJ is now the highest paid, best player on the roster his name sits on, and the player who will be looked upon to be its guide. With rookies Anthony Davis and Austin Rivers in tow, there’s little doubt the Bees can sneak up on some people and maybe fight for a 7- or 8-seed in the crowded West, but it won’t take place without some decent leadership.

“I think I’m going to be more vocal each year,” he says. “I learn more every year and you always learn something new. I would say the number one way to lead is by example. At this point I think I know what is best for some of these young guys. It’s about staying in the gym and working on something every day. It’s all about getting better.”

And not only is EJ the unquestioned leader of the Hornets, he’s also the unquestioned leader of the Gordon sons; his little brother Evan will play at Arizona State University in ’13-14 after he serves an NCAA-mandated year on the sidelines for transferring from Liberty, while the youngest, Eron, a ninth grader at North Central, has already been offered a scholarship to Indiana. “[Eron is] probably about where Eric was at this same time—Eric did a few things better than he does, and he does a few things better than Eric did at this very same age,” Eric Sr says.

It’s the summer of 2007 in Palmdale, CA, and the Pete Knight High School boys basketball team is in the middle of a practice. Its coach, Tom Hegre, decides to run an out-of-bounds play. He wants to get a senior forward named Paul George an open shot. George is the only returning starter from last year’s 22-4 team; the rest have graduated. Understandably, Hegre is worried. He knows George is talented, but he’s not sure that a player coming off of a season averaging 14 ppg and 8 rpg can develop into the star that the Knight basketball team desperately needs him to be.

The play Hegre calls works to perfection. George catches the ball in the corner without a defender close enough to prevent the right hand attached to his growing frame from releasing a jumper.

But no shot is taken. Instead, George passes the ball. As he watches this on the sideline, Hegre’s frustration mounts. During the next dead ball, he decides to approach his senior forward.

“You ever catch the ball on that play and don’t shoot it, I’m taking you off the court,” Hegre says. Eventually practice ends and everyone makes their way to the locker room. Hegre calls a team meeting.

“Does anyone care how many shots Paul takes?” he asks the team.

“No,” they answer.

“Does anyone have a problem if Paul scores 30 every game this year?”

“No.”

Around 10 months later, George is named the Golden League Player of the Year. He earns the honor after leading Knight to a 24-9 record, and to the California Division I State playoffs. He finishes the season averaging 25 points per game.

* * *

Paul George is an NBA paradox.

Many of the things that he does well—like not forcing shots—are the very things that you’d least expect a 22-year-old to do. The things he doesn’t do on the court—like forcing shots—are those that you’d most expect to see a 22-year-old do. And, to make matters even more confusing, those things that he doesn’t do well happen to be the exact things many want him to do, even though they are the same things that most young players have to be begged not to do.

So what exactly has George, taken by the Pacers with the 10th pick in the ’10 Draft, shown that he can do well in his first two NBA seasons?

For one, he’s proven that he knows how to get better, something that sounds simpler than it is. Every offseason, nearly every NBA player has a story written about him saying that he is “working hard.” And yet, rarely do you see one of them tangibly improve as much as George did last year. He became a 39 percent shooter after shooting 30 percent from behind the arc the year before. He upped his scoring by nearly 5 points a game (7.8 to 12.1 ppg). He more than doubled his assists (1.1 to 2.4 apg). His PER jumped from 13 to 16.5. “The way he improved from year one to year two is really indicative of his attitude, his work ethic and his desire to be great,” says Pacers head coach Frank Vogel. “And the way he was able to improve his three-point shot, that was remarkable.”

Perhaps as remarkable is that the 6-8 George, just five years out of high school, is already one of the better defensive players in the NBA. He’s tall and strong and quick and athletic. He can lock down a point guard at the top of key, shut down passing lanes with his long arms and bang bodies with big men in the paint. “He’s got hands and anticipation like Allen Iverson and Eddie Jones, he can block shots, and he’s one of our better ball containment guys,” Vogel says. “Usually 6-8 guys can’t guard against dribble penetration, but Paul is actually one of the best on our team at that. He just has defensive instincts that you can’t teach.”

But it’s not the physical attributes or instincts that make George such a defensive gem and such an unusual young player. It’s that he so desperately wants to apply those qualities to the defensive side of the court. George says that he always feels like he has something to prove; that, since he was young, he’s always been told that he wasn’t fast enough, tall enough, strong enough. But where many young players would try to prove their doubters wrong by attempting to put the ball into the basket as often as they possibly could, George decided that he would do so by doing the exact opposite. “I play with a chip on my shoulder, which is why I was really trying to defend guys well last year,” he says. “I was just trying to make a name for myself.”

And then there’s the unselfishness and ability to play within the flow of an offense. Some would call that passiveness. Depends who you ask.

* * *

Paul George really cares about his teammates. Their feelings. What they think of him. What they wish he would do. It’s why in high school he would try to involve his teammates in his recruitment process by bringing a shoebox full of recruiting letters to practice. It’s why he had his entire high school basketball team pose in the picture that was taken of him signing a letter of intent to play at Pepperdine University (he was released from that letter when Vance Walberg resigned as head coach and instead went to Fresno State). “He’s always been conscious of what his teammates are thinking,” Hegre says. “It’s why at Knight he wouldn’t go out and try to take over a game offensively until we told him to.”

This kind of mentality leads to two different results. One is that, at every level of basketball he’s ever played at, there’s always a point where George is labeled as timid. The other is that, eventually, something in George changes, and somewhere inside of him a switch is flipped on and the basketball beast is unleashed.

“It’s something that’s always been a problem for me. I’ve just always been a guy who wants to get my teammates going,” George says. “In high school, I started off as a secondary guy, and then when my senior year came, I started to really look to score and want the ball every possession. My freshman year in college I looked to the juniors and seniors, and then in my sophomore year, we only had one senior on the team, so I started to take over games. I think it—coming with the mindset of being aggressive—it’s just something that just naturally happens.

“When you start to see your jersey in the stands, and understand the plays more, and you’ve been around the coach and understand what he wants from you, it just makes you more comfortable and opens everything up. For me, it’s just about being more comfortable and having my teammates trust me with taking more shots and trying to take over a game offensively.”

The Pacers are still waiting for this progression. Vogel, though, is anything but worried. He understands that George is just entering his third year and has no issues with how his starting shooting guard plays and approaches the game. In fact, he loves it. “I debate this with local reporters all the time—they like to call him out for not being assertive and I actually think Paul is ahead of schedule in terms of where we thought he was going to be when we drafted him.” Vogel says. “What you don’t want, and you get this from a lot of young players, is for him to try to prove himself and force stuff. And he doesn’t. Paul plays within our team’s concept, and that’s a big reason we’ve had our success. I don’t want him to lose that. And to have all these guys—the media, his friends—telling him that he should shoot more, and to still not do that, that impressed and surprised me.”

This, though, can be a slippery slope; there’s a fine line between being a facilitator and passing up too many open looks, and praise for the former can quickly, and legitimately, grow into the latter. It’s great that George is so careful not to force shots, so willing to defer to others on the court. But eventually, a point is going to have to come where he is no longer OK with being his team’s fourth or fifth option, like he was in ’10-11, or being 10th on his team in usage rate, like he was in last year’s Playoffs. At some point, whether it’s this season or the next or the one after that, if the Pacers want to avoid the fate of the pre-Danny Ferry Hawks, they’re going to need Paul George to become a star, and to start doing the very things that he prefers not to do.

“I think he’s feeling out his spots with the Pacers, like he did in high school,” says George’s high school teammate, Lamonte Dewindt. “Once they give him a vote of confidence and let him know that he’s more of a key guy for them on offense, I think you’ll see a different player.”

You probably already had some sort of inclination this was true, but here’s confirmation: New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz was once a good point guard. A very good point guard.

You don’t break people’s ankles out of the slot in the Super Bowl like that without world-class footwork. You need some sort of training for those kinds of moves, and he’s very clearly exhausted the salsa dancing route. You saw him do it all nine times after touchdowns in his rookie season last year. But here’s how badly you underestimated how good he was: Cruz almost tried out the NCAA hoops path. And he spent his high school career traveling around and throwing lobs with a mercy rule-inducing group of future pros on the Tim Thomas Playaz.

While on that stellar AAU team, Cruz distributed the ball to a current Grizzly, Bobcat, Knick and L.A. Defender. Too bad he didn’t stick with that hoops thing. Instead, he went and broke receiving records at UMass. Then he had to settle for setting the Giants’ single-season receiving record (1,536 yards) in his rookie year. And then he got that Super Bowl ring. And a book deal. OK, so he’s done pretty well for himself anyway.

SLAM: So I hear you were on a bad-ass AAU team back in the day.

Victor Cruz: That is true. I played point guard for a team called the Tim Thomas Playaz.

SLAM: Who’d you play with?

VC: A few guys on my team, JR Smith, (high school star and NC State recruit) Brandon Costner, Wayne Ellington, Gerald Henderson. We were a pretty good team. We didn’t lose very many games. Those were some fun times.

SLAM: Do you and JR still hang out?

VC: We do keep in touch. I’ll see him, get dinner and whatnot.

SLAM: Gerald, too?

VC: Gerald Henderson and I keep in touch every now and then. I’ll text him when I see he goes off in a game. Wayne Ellington and I, we keep in touch all the time. It extends out from the AAU world into the professional world. It’s a close-knit family. Not just in the AAU world, but in the professional world.

SLAM: How did it affect you as a football player? Did it affect your attitude at all?

VC: Yeah, any time someone feels like I can’t do something, or if a coach comes up to me and says they don’t think I can do this or they don’t think I can do that, I’ve always tried to work harder and break through that barrier. I mean, I think you’ll see me outside a little bit more this year (and not in the slot). So that’s another barrier I’m gonna break through this year. Hopefully it can be as prosperous as last year.

SLAM: You think you guys can repeat this year?

VC: I like what we did. The Giants have never really made these big, gigantic off-season moves. They kind of draft very well and they keep the teams in place and they cultivate guys. They move them to become great players. I like what we do. I like that we kept the core of the team together. We lost Mario Manningham and Brandon Jacobs, but that’s part of the business. I feel like we got some good replacements for them. We drafted very well. Those young guys are definitely gonna have to play well. But I love the Giants’ moves. They kept our core here.

You should know this by now, but if not: Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony is on the cover of SLAM 162, which is on newsstands everywhere as you’re reading this. (Cop the digital version here.) To snap some photos of Melo for the mag’s pages, we went up to the roof of midtown Manhattan’s Ace Hotel and shot the gold medal winner with NYC’s most iconic building in the background, and you can roll through the gallery above to see the results.

Understand, we would’ve called Chris Walker if he hadn’t called us first.

At 6-10 and a shade over 215, Walker has the requisite size for a top high school prospect. Pair those dimensions with athleticism and explosiveness equal to anyone in his class, and it’s obvious why we would’ve reached out to set up an interview. But Walker beat us to it. That’s just his style—you simply won’t find another player who combines so much talent with such a knack for self-promotion.

“People think I’m cocky,” he says, “but I’m just very confident. I’ve been putting in work since Day One, and it’s really starting to pay off now.”

A consensus top-10 national ranking, and being the focus of a recruiting war that included a slew of heavyweight programs competing for his attention, seems to justify that confidence. But that doesn’t mean he’s trying to do it alone. In July, Walker announced he was going to be a Florida Gator, ensuring the Holmes County (FL) High star would keep his talents in-state. The chance to stay close to home and play for Billy Donovan were obvious draws, but so was the chance to team with his Florida Elite AAU running mate (and fellow top-10 prospect), point guard Kasey Hill. After a terrific run with Hill on the summer camp and tournament circuit, Walker says, “I realized me and him at Florida could be like Blake and CP or LeBron and DWade.”

Walker’s size, athleticism and fierce finishing certainly bring Blake Griffin to mind, but the 17-year-old chooses to emulate that other physical specimen—the one who finally copped a ring back in June. “This is gonna sound crazy, but I feel like if I have the right trainer and put on a little weight, I can be like LeBron,” Walker says. “LeBron is just the truth, man. He’s got a great basketball IQ, he’s athletic, strong, he can shoot, pass, rebound, block shots, guard any position. At the end of the day, I just want to be as complete a player as I can. That’s my goal.”

Big as he talks, Walker knows he’s far from the finished product, citing his strength, footwork and ballhandling as skills he needs to sharpen. “I ain’t there yet,” he says. “I ain’t near there yet.” Those deficiencies well in mind, Walker’s focused on working toward a freshman year strong enough to justify a place in the 2014 NBA Draft Lottery. Where many of his peers tend to downplay the one-and-done dream while still in high school, Walker is honest about his plan. “My goal for freshman year is to average like 15 and 8, with 3 or 4 blocks, 3 or 4 assists,” he says. “Hopefully, with that, I can be a Lottery pick.”

In the meantime, he’s focused on his senior season at Holmes County, where he says he’s happy to stay after toying with the idea of transferring to a prep power. Such a move might have meant more exposure, but in that, Walker hardly needs help. After our interview, he texted us to ask if we would publish his Twitter handle, “so I can get more followers!” It’s not normally our style, but sure, in this case we can give a plug to @cwalkertime23, aka “Chris Skywalker.” And of course, he’s on Facebook, Instagram and Kik, too. Might as well get on this dude’s bandwagon now, before it gets too crowded. Although we’ve got a feeling he’ll always be happy to make room for more fans.

He should have been dead a long time ago; lifeless and pulse-less in an Indiana cornfield. We should be speaking of him in the way we do Len Bias and Hank Gathers; of Reggie Lewis and Malik Sealy. The talk should be of lost youth and vacated promise; of “What could have been…” and “What never was…”

That’s how we treat deceased athletes, especially those entering their primes. We mourn their lives, of course, but what we really mourn are the unfilled gaps of wasted potential; the greatness that never occurred; selfishly, the gifts we were never presented.

That was David Rivers in the early morning hours of August 24, 1986—a man about to enter his prime; a man about to leave the earth.

Hell, he’ll tell you himself. Cliché dictates accident victims describe the experience with words like “blurry” and “hazy,” yet Rivers, at the time Notre Dame’s star PG, speaks of nothing of the sort. The trauma is as fresh and raw today, at age 48, as it was in the moment. In an odd sense, even more so. It is the wound that never heals. “I was using my hand,” he says, “to keep my guts in. Literally, I was using my hand…”

But wait. Hold on. There is an 82.3 percent chance that, if you’re reading this article in SLAM, you probably never saw David Rivers on the basketball court. His last American game, after all, took place more than two decades ago, and that was as a backup with the lowly Los Angeles Clippers. Without the intro, his name likely means nothing; just another player in short shorts from a grainy yesteryear era.

This, to understate, is terribly unfortunate.

Before superstars like Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury came along and made the undersized, lightning-quick, shoot-first point guard an NBA fashion staple (admittedly, one now out of vogue), Rivers was, well, an undersized, lightning-quick, shoot-first point guard. A 6-foot slasher from Jersey City, NJ, he was, in 1986, one of college basketball’s most electrifying players. He averaged 16.7 points and 4.9 assists as a sophomore, taking a low-key Irish basketball program and carrying it to a 23-6 record and a birth in the NCAA Tournament. His face was about to grace the cover of Inside Sports’ college basketball preview issue; a new breed of short, quick point guards who could shoot, score and pass with equal aplomb. “David Rivers could flat out play,” says Tony Campbell, a fellow New Jersey product who would go on to star at Ohio State. “People forget that he was in the discussion for the best player in the country. You couldn’t really stop him.”

And yet …

It was a hot, dark, muggy Indiana night.

Much like the ones that preceded and the ones that would follow. Rivers and Kenny Barlow, a recently graduated Notre Dame senior who was drafted in the first round by the Los Angeles Lakers, had just finished up their shifts at Port-a-Pit Barbecue, a catering company in Elkhart, IN, that offered a few of the Irish players summer work. The two were returning to their apartment on the outskirts of town when, while trying to avoid an oncoming car on Route 30, a two-lane country road, Barlow swerved his Chevy van hard to the right. The vehicle went off the road, flew through the air, slammed into an embankment, rolled multiple times and, ultimately, came to a halt some 89 feet from the road. Rivers, who had not been wearing a seatbelt, was launched through the windshield and sent 20 or so feet through the air. By the time he landed in a nearby cornfield, his stomach, sliced 15-inches apart from shattered glass, was oozing innards. “The body is an amazing thing,” says Rivers. “Just amazing. I felt no pain, and when Kenny found me, I was talking to him the way I’m talking to you now. I knew I was cut from side to side, and I knew my organs were in my hands. I was trying to keep the gash closed.”

Barlow, who suffered only minor cuts on his legs, covered his friend’s bloodied torso in a shirt, then ran to a nearby house to call for help. And Rivers, well, he sat. And sat. And sat. Alone. For 20 minutes, he thought about life, death and how it all works sorta mysteriously. “I wasn’t afraid to die,” he says. “The idea didn’t even bother me. I was peaceful. My only regret was not being able to say goodbye to certain people. Otherwise, I was ready.”

***

You are reading this article, reading recent quotes. That means David Rivers didn’t die.

Oh, he came close. The incision missed his heart by two inches, and he lost three pints of blood. “I asked the doctors how many stitches I needed,” Rivers said, “and they told me there were too many to count.” An ambulance rushed him to Elkhart General Hospital while Digger Phelps, Notre Dame’s coach, contacted his family members. John Heisler, the school’s associate sports information director, issued a statement the next day—“David suffered a clean cut about a foot long. The doctors said he was pretty lucky it didn’t hit any major organs.”

Later, he elaborated. “According to the doctors, the cut just missed vital organs by an inch here and an inch there,” Heisler said. “It was pretty awful when they first got to him. His guts were literally spilled out on the table, but fortunately, it ended up being just a severe tissue wound. They had to clean out a lot of gravel, grass and dirt, though.”

Rivers spent eight days in the hospital (it was supposed to be closer to a month), then began a horrific rehabilitation regiment of swimming, biking, running—and absolutely no basketball. There was talk he would never be the same; that fast and quick can’t be nearly as quick and fast after such bodily trauma. Yet those who doubted Rivers’ resolve didn’t understand Rivers’ resolve.

Growing up in the crime-ridden Marion Gardens housing projects in Jersey City, Rivers was one of 15 children born to Willie Joseph and Mamie Rivers. His mother worked as a maid at Jersey City’s Turnpike Motel, his father in a lighting factory. Rivers ran with gang members in his youth, but his eyes opened wide at age 9, when his older brother Willie Jr was stabbed and killed. This was less than two months after another brother, Joseph, died in a car accident. “We all have moments when we realize there are different ways our lives can go, and we have to make the right decisions,” he says. “That’s when I started figuring it out.”

Instead of enrolling in one of Jersey City’s crime-ridden high schools, Rivers chose St. Anthony, the fabled Catholic school whose team was run by legendary coach Bob Hurley. He paid tuition by holding a series of odd jobs, ranging from mopping a church floor to working as a runner on Wall Street. In his three years as the varsity starting PG, Rivers compiled a 75-10 record and won two state championships. “David was a poor kid but he knew right from wrong,” Hurley once told Sports Illustrated. “He may have wanted for material things, but he never wanted for love in his family. His character, integrity and work ethic are very solid.”

Rivers was widely recruited but picked Notre Dame based on its academics and the opportunity to contribute immediately. The move to South Bend was initially awkward; he’d never been away from home for a prolonged period, and the largely white and Catholic student body didn’t know what to make of the Baptist kid with the Jersey accent and mini-fro. Then, he began playing for the Irish, and everything clicked.

“I really loved being a part of that program,” he says. “We worked for everything we earned, and the players had a close bond. It was a very special time for me. Very special.”

***

On June 28, 1988, David Rivers, decked out in his nicest dark suit, headed to New York City’s Felt Forum for the NBA Draft. It had been nearly two years since his near-death experience, and he was—most believed—the same player he had been before the nightmare. As a senior, Rivers averaged 22 points and 5.6 assists in South Bend, and nary a game passed without two or three (or 10) scouts dotting the stands. It wasn’t a matter of if he would be drafted, merely a debate over when.

Yet as the event progressed, Rivers’ mood darkened. He knew Kansas star Danny Manning would go first; knew that Rik Smits and Charles Smith and Chris Morris and Mitch Richmond would have their names called early. But Jeff Grayer? Eric Leckner? Randolph Keys? By the third hour, the only two players left in the arena were Rivers and St. John’s Shelton Jones—who probably didn’t belong there to begin with. “It was disappointing,” Rivers says. “I can’t lie about that.”

Finally, with the 25th and final pick of the first round, the Lakers took a shot. “We liked David a lot,” says Jerry West, the team’s general manager at the time. “Not great size, but a lot of ability and heart.”

By most accounts (including his own), Rivers tore up the Los Angeles Summer League, and, once the season began, emerged as one of the team’s better practice players. “He was very intense,” says Mychal Thompson, a forward with the team. “A lot of natural skill.” Yet coach Pat Riley believed in a tight rotation, and Los Angeles’ three guards (Magic Johnson, Byron Scott, Michael Cooper) weren’t surrendering playing time. Hence, come season’s end, Rivers was left unprotected, and the first-year Minnesota Timberwolves selected him in the expansion draft. Rivers, picked up by the Clippers after being waived by the TWolves, played two more nondescript NBA seasons…then vanished.

Only he didn’t, not even close. Rivers spent a cup of coffee in the CBA, then began a fruitful, decade-long odyssey playing—and dominating—overseas. He captured France National League titles in ’94 and ’95, then won the Greece National League in ’96 (and became the first American voted European Player of the Year). He won multiple titles in Italy and Turkey and earned more than enough to support his family. “He’s a legend over there,” says Campbell. “It’s pretty amazing.”

“Sometimes you just put your head down, work hard and hope the best comes of it,” says Rivers, who now works as the president of Rivers Capital Investment. “My NBA career wasn’t what I hoped for, but I can’t complain. I’ve lived the dream.”

Studying abroad is one of the unique traditions of the college experience. The East Coast All Stars effectively act as college basketball’s unofficial study abroad program, where student ballers spend a week overseas competing against seasoned international competition. It’s a chance to improve their game and see what life will be like if they graduate to the next level overseas.

“College basketball players can’t take a semester abroad, their season prevents that,” says Guy Rancourt, ECAS founder/coach and head coach at Lycoming College in Williamsport, PA. “This is their opportunity to learn about the world.”

Rancourt founded the program in ’06 to expose current college players to the international game’s subtle differences. Details, like the weight of the ball and how a timeout is called, are nontraditional and require some studying. The ECAS have competed in Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, France and Switzerland. “We’ve played against high-level teams, some that competed in this past Olympics,” Rancourt says.

For the second straight year, the ECAS played in the Four Nations Cup in Tallinn, Estonia, facing national teams with overseas pros and some current NBA players and draftees. This year’s ECAS roster included Duke underclassmen Quinn Cook and Marshall Plumlee, Maryland guard Nick Faust, Iowa forward Zach McCabe and West Virginia point guard, Juwan Staten. Players from small colleges also participated, including two from Rancourt’s own team at DIII Lycoming.

The highlight of the tournament was ECAS’ double overtime 129-124 win over The Republic of Georgia, led by former Villanova star Corey Fisher. Cook scored 29 points, including a buzzer-beating floater that forced the second overtime. Cook, a sophomore point guard on Coach K’s team, was also named to the All- Cup Team.

“I definitely built up a lot of confidence on the trip because Coach Rancourt let me play my game against pros,” says Cook. “The experience was great.”

On the second day of the Nike Global Challenge in Alexandria, VA, Andrew Wiggins is the first player in the gym for an 8 p.m. game between his Canadian team and China. He’s so early, in fact, there are still more than two minutes left in the preceding game between USA-East and Brazil. With time to burn, Wiggins parks his lanky frame in the doorway of the gym and watches wide-eyed as Brazil upsets the Americans.

In the same gym hours earlier, Wiggins put on a show that coaches from nearly every major college program—Coach Cal from Kentucky, Rick Pitino from Louisville and Roy Williams from UNC, to name a few—witnessed. He led Canada in an upset of the same USA-East squad that he’s now watching lose to Brazil. In that game, Wiggins scored 23 points, added 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block and a steal in 39 minutes. He didn’t play perfectly, but the promise he showed was enough to reinforce what scouts already know: Andrew Wiggins is probably one of the most gifted prep players in North America, and he already possesses NBA-ready tools and physique.

What the college coaches and several NBA scouts in the gym don’t know about Andrew Wiggins is that he won’t be playing tonight. His shoes are tied and his jersey is tucked in, but he won’t check into the game.

Wiggins travels the layup line normally, dunking once or twice just because the opportunity is there. He stands for the national anthems—Canada and the USA—and then takes the last seat on the bench. Midway through the first quarter, he taps his foot impatiently. In the stands, despite him not getting any burn, the conversations among the coaches and scouts are all about Wiggins. “Just look at the kid, he’s got an NBA body already,” says one NBA scout, observing Wiggins’ 6-7, 205-pound frame in a folding chair. “He’s only going to get stronger.”

As the game continues and Wiggins still languishes on the pine, the video guys—there to capture dunks and crosses for highlight videos they hope go viral—realize what’s up and head out. But many of the coaches present, who are there as much to be seen by Wiggins as they are to see him, stay, even if seasonal NCAA rules prevent them from speaking with him. They stay, even if they can only watch him on the bench. “All he needs to do is straighten out the jump shot and he’ll be alright,” one DI head coach says into an Android phone. “He’ll get there.”

***

It makes sense that Andrew Wiggins is the son of world-class athletes. His father, Mitchell Wiggins, starred at Florida State before embarking on a nearly 20-year pro career that included being the first-round pick of the Pacers in ’83, playing in the NBA Finals with the Rockets in ’86 and—after serving a suspension for testing positive for cocaine—averaging 15.5 ppg for Houston in ’89-90. His mother, Marita Payne, won two Silver medals for Canada in track and field at the ’84 Olympics.

Andrew was born in February of ’95 while his father was still playing professionally overseas. He’s the fourth of his parents’ six children, all of whom play ball. Andrew’s older brothers both stand over 6-5; Mitch Jr, 22, has two years of college eligibility left, and Nick, 21, recently signed with Wichita State. The oldest daughter, Stephanie, 20, also played growing up. The final two Wiggins children, girls Taya, 12, and Angelica, 15, are described as “very good players” by one Canadian coach.

When Andrew was in, as Canadians say, grade seven, he followed his oldest brothers on Mitch Jr’s recruiting visit to Florida State University, where their dad had averaged 23 points per game as a senior in ’83. The brothers found themselves shooting around in the Tucker Center. Andrew connected on an alley-oop from his older brother Nick and dunked for the first time in his life.

He grew into the type of player who commanded the court from every angle. Even now, his leaping ability jumps out at people.

“We were working a pretty advanced drill at a camp and Andrew might have been 13 years old, but didn’t look 13,” says Greg Francis, an assistant coach for Canada’s men’s national team who once led Fairfield to a near upset of North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament. “Andrew tried this spin move and tripped, lost his balance and then jumped and had to move his head away from hitting the rim. You could tell how much potential he had even by watching his mistakes.”

Over the summer, at the LeBron James Skills Academy, Wiggins earned praise in a game attended by the camp’s namesake. On one play, he drove down the baseline and released a hawk-like leap, reaching so high from an odd angle that the attempt prompted LBJ to rise from his seat in recognition. Wiggins missed the dunk by a mile, but it was another instance where he left a good impression even while making a mistake.

Wiggins played at Christian Faith Center in North Carolina in eighth grade—his first schooling stint in the States—then bolted back up north for two years before returning to the US in the fall of 2011. At West Virginia’s Huntington Prep, Wiggins fit in right away with the squad of elite level basketball players. He averaged 24.2 points, 8.5 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.7 blocks per game, helping coach Rob Fulford’s Express to a 28-2 record.

“It’s hard to pinpoint one great game, he’d have 6 or 7 points in a spurt, not score for a couple minutes and then go on another run, end of the game he’s got 30,” says Fulford, recounting Wiggins’ performance last year. “It’s kind of like what Jordan used to do.”

When Wiggins plans to go to college—as opposed to where he’ll choose to go—is the biggest question surrounding the 17-year-old. He’s listed in the Class of 2014, but over the summer, rumors flew that he might reclassify to be eligible for college next fall.

Some speculate that he may go to Kentucky and play for John Calipari, who has coached three of the last five first overall NBA Draft picks. Others say that he might choose Florida State, his father’s alma mater. Those close to Wiggins say that where he goes to school isn’t important.

“It doesn’t really matter where he goes, to be honest with you,” says Mike George, an assistant coach with Canada’s Global Challenge team and co-director of CIA Bounce, a Canadian AAU outfit. “He’s at a level where he can play whether you push the ball or play more in the half court. His athletic ability helps him create for his teammates; it’s a characteristic like LeBron has.”

One thing that makes Wiggins’ situation dissimilar to LeBron’s is that Wiggins has to go to college, while LBJ had the luxury of being able to skip school. He’s already Canada’s most celebrated schoolboy baller ever and doesn’t even go to school there anymore. He ranked at the top of most major rankings for the Class of 2014, and many goes as far as to call him the best player in high school, period.

“It’s impressive to see that he filled out a little bit, he was very skinny,” says Francis, who watched Wiggins at Canada’s Junior National Team tryouts. “He’s quicker and he’s doing things off the dribble that I didn’t see him doing a couple of years ago.”

By all accounts, he’s on pace—maybe slightly ahead of schedule—to be NBA-ready whenever he graduates high school. And that day may come sooner than expected.

***

The last day of the Global Challenge takes place at the DC Armory, closer to the heart of the nation’s capital. The building is showered with Nike swooshes and equipped with several stations designed for fans to test their vertical leap. Bobbito Garcia DJs as local hoops diehards stroll in, eager to see future NBA talent, perhaps from the invited countries.

Guys in polo shirts and khaki shorts holding cell phones and iPads crowd the sidelines and baselines. The number of college coaches and NBA scouts in attendance has multiplied profoundly since Canada’s last game. They’ve spent another long day in the gym by the time Wiggins reaches the court for the title tilt against USA-Midwest at 2 p.m.

The ball goes directly to Wiggins on Canada’s first possession, but neither he nor his teammates find a groove. There’s a hand in Wiggins’ face most of the game and his jumper is pretty streaky. Still, he scores 24 points, collects 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals and despite 2 turnovers, he doesn’t get called for one personal foul.

“He looks like a pogo stick out there,” says one assistant coach and ex-NBA player, watching Wiggins from the baseline.

The game runs past the official cutoff time (5 p.m.) for NCAA recruiting during April/July evaluation periods. In compliance, all coaches in attendance make a mass exodus and the baseline that had just been mobbed stands empty.

Wiggins performs solidly in a 100-86 defeat but doesn’t overachieve. In the eyes of those watching him develop closely, Wiggins showed signs of improvement even if he couldn’t capitalize on winning the Global Challenge for Canada. “He was more vocal and he’s competing at a higher level,” says George, Wiggins’ coach since grade nine. “He’s responded to challenges and is taking them personal.”

He emerges from the constructed locker room/backstage area. Waiting reporters occupy a dark corner and faces are hard to see, but distant flashing lights shine on Wiggins’ friendly, honest smile.

“I struggled here, but I shot the ball well in the EYBL, Hoop Summit and during school,” Wiggins says. “It wasn’t my best weekend.”

Even so, he’s not discouraged in the slightest. In the dark, Wiggins says he’s set on graduating with the Class of ’14. Fulford says Wiggins is still undecided on his classification.

As the games end, LeBron James is brought out to half-court at the Armory, causing hysteria in the crowd. On the baseline, Wiggins stands alone and awestruck, staring at his favorite player. At 17, he’s the most naturally gifted kid in basketball, but he’s still working off his childhood. He’s into video games, girls, hitting the movies and the mall.

It’s a reminder that, when he’s ready—when he reaches the point where it all comes together—the basketball world will be waiting to watch him.

The horror show scandal that swallowed the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno’s legacy should have taught us, if nothing else, a very simple lesson: Universities really shouldn’t be in the business of building statues to athletic icons. This is especially true when it comes to honoring someone in the morally conflicted, deeply corrupt and highly combustible multi-billion dollar world of college athletics.

I write this because the new college basketball season is opening with news of two new statues, just several hundred miles apart, that will commemorate two living basketball legends. In East Lansing, MI, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Michigan State’s most famous alumnus and the Most Outstanding Player of the 1979 Final Four, will be set in stone with a 12-foot monument to his undeniable greatness. In Terre Haute, IN, on the campus of the Indiana State Sycamores, Larry Joe Bird will be immortalized in a statue set to be 15 feet tall. Why 15? Because the sculptor believes that Bird is “better than Magic.” This is all very cute, and Magic and Bird have certainly made a nice little cottage industry out of their rivalry—even co-signing a Broadway play that, like a Magic no-look pass, went unseen.

But honoring these all-time athletes on a college campus is, as it was with Paterno, an absolutely awful idea. I am not for a moment suggesting that any Sandusky-sized scandals are lingering in Magic’s and Larry’s closets. Magic seems content as a figurehead owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and buying up the rest of Harlem. Larry just retired from running the Indiana Pacers and seems ready to kick back into retirement. This isn’t about them but about the message it sends to the regular students as well as the student athletes at each school.

This should be the takeaway lesson from what happened at Penn State: Sports cannot be the financial, social or even emotional center of a university. Similarly, a Division I college basketball program cannot be a minor league for the NBA where students are scenery to the action on the court and just happen to go to class in between games.

Idolizing Magic and Bird at an institution of higher learning sends exactly the opposite message. Magic was at East Lansing for two years. Bird by all accounts went to class only if he took a wrong turn on the way to the gym. No one should begrudge them their lack of academic rigor. Both were obvious galactic talents who did exactly what they should have done: use their school as a stepping-stone to the pros. But they are also once-in-a-generation talents. One of the main problems with our jock culture is that we sell the idea that anyone can be Magic or Larry if they just have the will, desire or as Bird called his memoir, Drive to do it. But hoop is cruel, perhaps the cruelest of all major sports. A person might be able to will himself to hit a curve ball or memorize every blitz package on earth. But no one can will himself or herself to being 6-9 with a court vision that would humble Bob Cousy. Asking students to aspire to be Magic and Bird is almost like asking them to aspire to be Superman, when no one but Clark Kent was born on Krypton. Students deserve better. The players deserve better. The warped moral center of the NCAA, in such desperate need of reformation, deserves better.

If people really think there should be statues of Magic and Bird, put Magic right next to his old running buddy Kareem right in front of the Staples Center. Place Bird alongside the only Celtic with a loftier legacy, the great Bill Russell. But please get them off their campuses. There’s a good record in recent—as well as ancient—history that false idols never end well.

With an Olympic summer ending and the start of an NBA season in which the tightest race for Eastern Conference Playoff position may occur in the same city on deck, it didn’t take long for us to decide who we wanted on our cover this month. Carmelo Anthony has been a “SLAM Guy” for a minute, having breakfast with Lang Whitaker and the SLAM staff the very day he was Drafted to the League and getting a bunch of freshcovers while he was with the Nuggets. But until now, we hadn’t shot him as a Knick.

What happened? Melo Mania in New York reached it’s peak after months of speculation ended and he got traded to the Knicks in the second half of the 2010-11 season. I was at the Garden the night he debuted against the Milwaukee Bucks. The magic of the Garden is a little overrated, but trust: Knick fans almost blew the roof of the spot that night.

Since then, however, feelings about Carmelo—even, or maybe especially, in New York—have wavered. Both he and the Knicks have shown flashes of brilliance, but this is a town where Derek Jeter is the archetype for athletic success, and it’s not because of the shoes he wears or his relationship with the media. It’s because he wins.

Whether he’s had the right coaches or teammates, there’s no debating the fact that Carmelo hasn’t won enough in his two truncated seasons here. In fact, I know some big Knick fans who have all but given up on deep Playoff runs with Carmelo. “Great scorer, and our best player,” they’ll say. “But this guy is not a winner, and he’s not a leader.” Melo’s horrendous Playoff winning percentage doesn’t exactly offer much in the way of refutation, either.

What I say to that is: “Y’all have some short—and selective—memories.”

Carmelo spent one season in college, and he lead an otherwise middle-of-the-pack Big East roster to the National Championship.

His Nugget teams made the Playoffs every year he was there, including a deep run in ’09. He’s been a huge part of two straight Olympic Gold Medal winners, taking the floor with the likes of Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and LeBron James and feeling like any shot he took was every bit as good as one any of them would put up.

But don’t just take my word for it. The one secondary source I truly wanted for this piece (yes, I wrote it myself) was Jim Boeheim, who coached Melo at Cuse and as a USA Basketball assistant. Coach Boeheim and I had a great phone conversation before I turned in my story, with the highlight being a quote I used in the story: “We had LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. (Carmelo) feels he’s as good as those guys, and he is,” says the third-winningest coach in DI history. “He is as good an offensive player as we have.”

I want to save the rest for those of you who subscribe to SLAM or go buy this copy on the newsstands (in NYC this week and nationwide next, with loads of non-Melo content including a feature on future star Andrew Wiggins and our annual College Preview), but please know the story has lots more pearls from Boeheim and extensive insights from Carmelo himself. Feeling fit and excited, let’s just say Melo sees this season as a new and promising beginning for the Knicks.

And then there are the photos!

Yes, that is the real Empire State Building on the cover. Our photographer Tom Medvedich and Creative Director Melissa Brennan got us all up on the roof of the Ace Hotel, just a few blocks south of New York City’s most iconic building. Friends from the Knicks PR staff brought the new jersey (which hadn’t been shown to the public yet) for the cover shoot. Stylist Khalilah Williams-Webb brought the casual threads and Jordan Brand kicks for our feature photos.

Though it won’t appear on newsstands for another week-plus, SLAM 162 has us too hyped to keep under wraps any longer.

Some time between KICKS and the end of the Olympics, our focus shifted to the upcoming NBA season, our focus shifted to the first SLAM of the 2012-13 campaign. The first question we had to address, obviously, was who to put on the cover. Well, as you’ll see below, not only did we come up with a star cover (Carmelo Anthony, who we got up with in midtown Manhattan in the last week of August) but we came up with a dope concept as well. We’ll have a more comprehensive preview of SLAM 162 up next week. Until then, check out the cover below, shot by Tom Medvedich.